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Separatism on Ponychan
Separatism on Ponychan is nearly as old as the chan itself. From 2011 to 2015 a total of six chans split from Ponychan and one more further split from one of those offshoots. Currently only three of them still exist: Stevenchan, Ponyville, and GETchan. Ponychan, its offshoots, and sometimes GETchan are collectively known as the Inner Chans. Early Splits Despite not even being half a year old, Ponychan witnessed its first two splits in July of 2011 with the creation of Stevenchan and Lunachan. Stevenchan was founded by users that were unsatisfied with the nature of the chan and who wanted a more traditional chan environment. Ponychan hate threads became commonplace and the chan was growing steadily in its first few months. Lunachan, on the other hand, was made with the intent of being a "drama bunker" for those that wanted to escape the constant shit flinging. Lunachan's traffic also began to pick up, but despite the success of the two new chans, Ponychan was hardly phased. Later that year, Stevenchan experienced its own split in the form of GETchan, who saw the staff of Stevenchan as too repressive. Due to being an offshoot of an offshoot, GETchan had almost nothing to do with ponies anymore and is usually counted as a separate entity, though its ties to the other chans results in it sometimes being considered part of the Inner Chans. Ponychan Troubles Main article: Ponychan Troubles Due to a series of controversial events occurring in early 2012, including Orange Blaze's frequent and lengthy absences, unpopular or controversial decisions like /gala/ and /show/, as well as some mod appointments, ban waves on /oat/, staff infighting, lack of progress regarding coding issues, capricious enforcement of rules, chaffing of certain groups like /b/read and /p/ad, the near deletion of the site itself and its near hand-off to Zamoonda, Cross Breeze and Soarin's resignations, and /ef/'s deletion, tensions were rising within the chan. Users from the now-deleted /ef/ founded efchan to serve as a successor to the board. The biggest split was yet to come, however. Fed up with the state of Ponychan, MLPchan was launched, taking over half of the remaining userbase with it. While usually not considered part of the Ponychan Troubles, a group of roleplayers followed suit about a year later and founded Equestriachan. The Great Mergers With a change in staff on Ponychan in the three years since the MLPchan split, talk began regarding a potential reunification of the two chans. The two sides managed to come to an agreement and a date was set, marking a period known as the Great Mergers. Meanwhile, GETchan and Lunachan, along with /ref/, also merged in an attempt to end the Era of Stagnation. By the time of the mergers in 2015, Equestriachan had long since shut down. Unhappy with the terms of the reunification of Ponychan, a user named Moony riled users up for another split, forming Ponyville. As of now, this is the most recent split. The last chan to merge was efchan, which returned to Ponychan in 2017. At this point, Stevenchan had mostly been abandoned and GETchan had nearly nothing to do with Ponychan, leaving Ponyville as the last "true" offshoot. Aftermath With irreconcilable differences between GETchan and Ponychan, as well as Stevenchan being largely unused, focus has shifted towards a potential reunification with Ponyville. On the other hand, the lack of offshoots has led to groups such as the Revolutionary Front of Ponyville seeing the chan as their last chance to create an alternative to Ponychan, resulting in the Ponyville Insurgency. Currently there is no official discussion between Ponyville and Ponychan on the subject of a merger.